Of Gossamer Resolution
by D. Jamal Tugimora
Summary: Present at the Battle of Kvatch, two Imperial Battlemages do all they can to fight off the Daedra during the Oblivion Crisis. However, when one of them gets a bit too involved with the Daedra Lord Mephala, the hardest battle of all turns out to be within.


**Chapter One: Reflection  
**  
Fredas, Last Seed 3, 3E433

Imperial Legion Barracks

Imperial City, Cyrodiil  
1727 hours

It was pure relief that I felt when I removed the heavy standard-issue legion armor. I never did well in those tin cans. The plates were hot and stiff, and although they provided excellent protection against _most_ weapons, I preferred not being hit in the first place. "Dodge" was the proverb that I was trained by and raised on, and so I lived by it. There were plenty of times when I learned that dodging was better than taking the blow head on, as my first martial arts master, an Imperial named Adamus Arcadia, made sure I knew and knew well.

I stared into the mirror directly in front of me. The sweat that should have poured down my face was absorbed by the now-filthy bandana that wrapped around my head like a fallen halo, exposing my short, frizzy, needed-to-be-cut hair. I made sure to always keep a few bandanas – or handkerchiefs if you wanted to be an ass about it – with me; you never knew when you'd need one. Regardless, my dark skin glistened with salty moisture in the dim lighting of the washroom, as did my brown eyes. I often received nice comments on the color of my eyes, though I didn't feel they were all that spectacular. I very much envied all of the blue and green-eyed Imperials, Nords and Bretons (with their straight hair and light skin) whom I worked with in the legion. Being a Redguard, I was certainly the minority, and some of the less tolerant soldiers made sure I remembered. Of course, my best friend made sure that _they_ remembered who _he_ was.

Azrael Felicius was his name. A tanned-skinned Imperial with light brown eyes, high cheekbones, bushy eyebrows, short-ish dark hair and a forever wispy mustache, he was regarded as one of the fastest people in the entire Imperial Legion, and indeed he was fast in every respect. He could outrun all of us, and I have yet to see anyone with quicker reflexes or draw of the sword (we once measured his draw time at less than a second) than him. He had defeated every challenger who had ever tried to outdo him, whether it was sword play, racing, or anything that was even remotely competitive. He was a practitioner of the ancient Akaviri – and later Elven – martial art that utilized katanas, and was one of the few legionnaires who carried such a weapon. But, then again, with us being officers, we made use of any and all benefits.

I was far from being his equal. Back when we were mere children in a secondary school in Leyawiin, we competed with each other for everything and with everything: girls, sports, grades, you name it. We had always been best friends, but we were each other's biggest rivals. While he far eclipsed me in mathematics and the sciences, I likewise surpassed him in the literary arts. We were usually even, but eventually he gradually began to pull away from me. By the time we graduated from college, he was better than me in just about everything, save language and literature. When it came to combat, he was faster, stronger, tougher, and certainly more courageous than I was, and I often beat myself up about it (though I never let him know that). While he was usually rash and spontaneous in everyday life, I had never seen a more cold, remorseless, or calculating tactician in battle than he. He excelled in OCS, receiving the highest marks in every area, while I didn't even make second or third, or even fourth, for that matter. Our superiors frequently took notice of him, and he managed to even get ahead of me in rank by one.

Don't get me wrong, that didn't mean that I was bad, only that he was better. I worked my ass off on a daily basis. I competed with him in everything, just like when we were kids, though this time he didn't know it. Everything that I had, though, simply just wasn't enough. He always surpassed me with little effort. I frequently wanted to simply lie down and expire, for I often felt as though I didn't amount to anything.

I know that sounds extremely selfish and I suppose it is. During my formative years, I was one of the only people that I knew that had a relatively decent childhood. I received mostly any and everything I wanted, my parents stayed together, and I didn't have too many traumatic experiences.

On the other hand, Azrael's biological mother was a skooma-sucker and his father had just about every job in Tamriel at one point or another. His father left her and moved, with Azrael, from the Imperial City to Leyawiin, where I met him. He was exposed to that skooma crap at an early age and it stayed with him for the better part of his childhood. We'd had plenty of arguments and fights dealing with that problem, and I for one am glad that he had finally overcame it by the time we were into college. Just another one of the many things that he had overcame.

See, as I've said, I had a rather privileged childhood. I was raised in a military family, with my father being frequently deployed as a Legionnaire. Growing up, I was always the best. I was the smartest kid in school. I had the best friends, the best outfit, the best grades, the best everything. I grew used to it, and I always felt as though I needed to impress someone (namely my father). So later, when I met Azrael and a few other select people, I simply couldn't handle the thought of being second best. The few souls that surpassed me in the fields that I considered myself the best in all did so because of their harsh upbringings, and they repeatedly assured me that it wasn't my fault that I couldn't measure up to them.

Of course, everything they said went through one ear and out of the other, because I hated them.

I hated them because they did what no one else could: put me in my place. They humbled me. As I grew older, I realized this and became grateful. However, all of my passion and fervor for proving myself to everyone dissipated, and I became very low-key and humble for my age (though I was always outwardly modest and inwardly conceited). I began to settle for second best. I fancied myself as a supporter, because that was the one thing I knew no one could do better than I could, as well as it was the one place where I fitted in, and so I constantly tried to accept my place in the world as such. My best wasn't good enough, but it was good enough for me.

As far as my abilities, I was pretty decent in what I did. I was an adequate swordsman, better than most (except Azrael, of course), as well as an expert martial artist. Both of us were near-genius level intelligent, and it was one of the only things we couldn't say one of us was the best at. I had him in anything dealing with language, literature, or politics (he didn't have the patience for political dealings) and especially magic. We were both quite good with illusion magic. Though he could never fool me, using a spell or otherwise, he was more proficient in the school that I was. He also had a better understanding on alchemy, a subject I wanted absolutely nothing to do with. Even though we were both officially Imperial Battlemages, he only really had an instinctive grasp on destruction magic, which was by far the easiest of the arcane schools.

Antagonistically, I had been gifted with an excellent understanding of mysticism, the most mysterious and difficult of the schools. I inherited the gift from my mother, an expert magician herself. She – as well as most of her side of the family – frequently had odd visions that related to life. They could sense the life energy of their kin from anywhere, regardless of the distance between them, and immediately knew if someone had died and usually could tell who it was. They were very spiritual and frequently talked of "life energy" and being "consciously aware of a higher reality", stuff that even I didn't really understand. What I did know, however, was that mysticism as an arcane art came easily and relatively passively to me. Most students of the arcane either knew very little of the school or completely ignored it. While other mages had to study hard and really concentrate to cast spells such as life detection and telekinesis, all I really had to do was breathe. I was always and permanently in some passive state of spiritual awareness, and was therefore hard to sneak up on and I could frequently tell whether someone's "energy" or "soul" was positive or malignant (though sometimes it was annoying to close my eyes and "see" a bunch of pink blobs everywhere while trying to "turn it off"). The Legion took notice of my rare abilities during college and picked me up quickly.

And now, here I was, staring at my dumb face in the mirror of the Imperial Legion washroom with twenty other smelly, sweaty soldiers all trying to clean themselves. I quickly exited the premises, preferring to take a nice, cool, refreshing swim in Lake Rumare. The water was the perfect temperature this time of the year and was also less crowded, save for the fish and random mudcrab that always happened to pop up. It always puzzled me why those things were so aggressive for such a weak creature. I carried an old rusty iron dagger with me for those encounters. They weren't worth being slain by my sword.

Once I was done, I quickly headed back towards the barracks to dress in clean clothes. I was off duty at this point, and I decided that it'd be the perfect time to head over to the Arena and bet on a match. I had a few coins to spare, so why not?

On my way, I couldn't help but ponder what the next few days would be like. Azrael and I had both received orders to Kvatch, a city in western Cyrodiil along the Gold Road, between Skingrad and Anvil. I personally had always wanted to see what it was like, as I had never been to the west, and I heard that Kvatch was one of the best cities to live in throughout the entire province. We were to leave tomorrow on Loredas and make our way along the Gold Road. I did enjoy road trips, but I refused to bring that godforsaken iron suit. We were going to be issued new, lighter armor when we got there, so I didn't see any point in bringing the Legion armor with us if it'd be more useful to someone else back in the capital. Besides, I preferred chainmail anyway, and Kvatch's mascot – the wolf – was emblazoned on the front of every uniform and shield, and it happened to be my favorite animal.

Azrael was no doubt replacing the old executive officer of the Kvatch guard, but I don't know why I was assigned as well. However, I dared not say a word about it; their mistake, not my problem. Kvatch was going to be a breeze, or so I thought.

Little did I know that in less than a month, I would be in the largest battle of my life.


End file.
